Back In The Saddle Again
Back In The Saddle Again.
WOW! The last 3 months have been a total blur. Sorry I’ve been away for a while but there are times when you do have to establish and follow some priorities in life, regardless of how much you want to do other things.
When I was doing the mental drafting of this article the Aerosmith song “Back in the saddle again” kept running around the few rocks I have in my head and it’s kind of what’s been happening around here.
So, let’s look at a few things from the last few months.
What’s happened?
We’ve lost four very talented folks from our planet: Farrah Fawcett, Walter Cronkite, Ed McMahon and of course Michael Jackson.
Everyone will remember Farrah from Charley’s Angels and anything else she was in. Farrah was just someone you didn’t miss. Her marriage to Six Million Dollar Man Lee Majors ended when she decided a romp with Ryan O’Neal was more fun. Welcome to Hollywood. But in the end, Farrah showed us bravery in the face of death and helped open the doors to dialog about cancer and other fatal diseases. She will be missed.
Walter Cronkite was an institution. He was “Mr. Credibility” when it came to watching the evening news. We all watched, learned from and trusted Walter. It was interesting that when he left, he was replaced by Dan Rather. It would appear to many of us that Rather never really learned that the definition of “news” was “Facts, sans opinion”. In the time he sat in the chair for the CBS evening news it would be flippantly referred to as “The CBS Evening News – Rather Biased”. And you would eventually see this also on bumper stickers. Cronkite and those newscasters of his era (Reynolds, Chancellor, Huntley, Brinkley) are legendary for the credibility they brought into our homes each night. We miss them. And that’s the way it is.
With the passing of Ed McMahon, we finally close the chapter on the Tonight Show. Frankly, it was an institution when Johnny Carson ran it and when he left, the show left with him. Jay Leno hasn’t been able to pull off a Carson and Conan never will.
Regardless of what you think of his personal life, Michael Jackson was an incredibly talented musician and performer. I’ll have more to say about him later in another article, but suffice it to say that we have lost a legendary and talented performer, who like Elvis, left the building way too early in their prime.
Back up in Washington, it’s clear that the ongoing battle of Dems vs Repubs is still in high gear and as messy as ever.
I’m not sure where he found her or why, but Obama has decided that Sotomayor is qualified to be the next justice of the Supreme Court. I did find it interesting that it would appear that not only did she not meet the litmus tests Obama used for Court candidates when he was a senator, but she clearly is getting her ruling(s) overturned by the real court she’ll soon become a member of. And, let’s not forget the racist and bigoted statements about “smart latino women…”. If this had been a white person you can bet your bottom nickel that Jesse Jackson and that fat pig Al Sharpton would have been marching in the streets…but, alas, she’s a fellow liberal Democrat so she can’t do any wrong. Well, that was at least true before she was sworn onto the bench. Hopefully she’ll be kept in check by more experienced minds already on the high bench.
Then there’s the current healthcare fiasco. Does anyone really understand what they want to do up there and better yet, does anyone have a clue who’s going to pay for it?
On the movie front, we’ve had some winners and some real losers. I’ll write more on these later but a few comments off the cuff:
Transformers – wasn’t one ENOUGH!?
Star Trek – Nice, new thought patterns for plotlines and character origins and development. This was really refreshing.
Harry Potter 6 – mediocre at best
The Ugly Truth – I laughed my ass off at this one. THIS is what should have been in that total lame joke waste of time marriage counselor wannabe called Fireproof.
Julie and Julia – I’d love to see this movie clean up house at the Oscars. This was a good movie and worth seeing – but perhaps something you may want to leave younger kids at home with auntie.
The Proposal – Sandy, it had it moments but you could have done better
OH, by the way, and more on this coming, but all those idiots that tell people going to the UK that British food taste horrid – WELL THEY’RE WRONG! I was over there for a couple weeks and had a great time! And the food was incredible! More on that later.
Well, my two acre garden project is finally finished to the point that it’s really going to be a lot of fun next planting season. I’m talking 10 grape arbors, 23 blue berries, black/raspberries, about 110 raised beds with everything from tulips to zucchini in them. Not to mention 40 fruit trees and a couple of figs. I’m going to have fun next year. Needless to say, there’s still a couple very small minds on my home owners association that think the development I’m in was put there for their own private use as a showcase for their presumed building and real estate sales acumen….but those thoughts reside clearly and only in their little minds and nobody else’s.
My kid started 7th grade this week and yes we spent another week up in Nelson County, VA, having a great time and I’ll go into more detail on that later. Fortunately, this year the water levels in the James River were higher and we didn’t have to carry our canoe as many times. But you can’t beat a week away from the mess we call life that’s spent with your kid. You’ll never forget those memories…and neither will they. So, go make some memories with your kids!
Be back shortly, with more!
I’m Don Rima and that’s the way I see it, back in the saddle again, From Where I Stand.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
